TeenLab -- "Express Yourself"

TeenLab part of the 2012 Playwrights Festival

TeenLab is an annual KCPT program in which student-artists write, develop and perform their own collaborations. 

The next session of TeenLab is being held in conjunction with the 16th Annual Playwrights' Festival.

Dates of TeenLab:  Feb 6 - 24, 2012

Price: Sliding Scale  $85 - $150

Open to all area students ages 13 - 19.  School credit may be available if arranged through KCPT and your school counselor.

This session of TeenLab includes:

• Three weeks of lab writing exercises
• A showcase of students' original work on Friday, Feb 24 at 5:30 p.m. at the Playhouse
• Teen writing workshop with the Festival's featured guest national playwright Constance Congdon
• A Playwrights' Festival All-Access Pass, enabling students to attend all Festival performance events, discussions and rehearsals from Feb 6 - 26
• Opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with local, regional and national playwrights participating in the festival
• Opportunity to see your work performed (a staged reading) in front of an audience by actors from the Festival

Instructors will be Charlie Bethel and Amy Sousa (see bios below).

TeenLab is part master class, part production result. Student artists write, develop and perform their own collaboration. Acting lessons -- Writing sessions -- and the unique experience of performing new, self-created work together. TeenLab opens a way for heightened self-expression and the employment of new skill sets for the young artist.
 

TeenLab Instructors

AMY E. SOUSA received her BFA in theater from New York University’s Tisch school of the arts. She studied acting at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting. She has worked as a teaching artist for the last fifteen years in the New York City School district, teaching acting, writing, storytelling, voice and movement classes. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is also a member of Sootsprites Productions, a Port Townsend based production company.

CHARLIE BETHEL is a writer/actor based in New York. He trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and has taught at Northwestern University's National High School Institute (aka"Cherubs," Evanston, IL), Illusion Theatre (Minneapolis, MN), the Community Initiatives Project (Greenwood, SC), and the Esalen Institute (Big Sur, CA), as well as workshops and master classes for high schools in Minnesota, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.  He directed Teen Lab at Key City Public Theatre last autumn, and is looking forward to repeating the experiment this autumn. His specialties are Voice and Movement, Shakespeare, and monologue/solo performance.

TeenLab -- General Information

TeenLab is an on-going KCPT program in which student-artists write, develop and perform their own collaborations.  These intensives are open to students ages 13 - 19.

KCPT can work with a student's school to coordinate class credit in creative writing or theater/arts.

Fee structure is a sliding scale, with some scholarships available.  Adjustments for families with more than one child enrolled are also available.

TeenLab is part master class, part production result.  Acting lessons -- Writing sessions -- and the unique experience of performing new, self-created work together.

TeenLab opens a way for heightened self-expression and the employment of new skill sets for the young artist.

Our TeenLab program is generously sponsored by GPM, Inc.

TeenLab Archives...

Comments from 2010 TeenLab participants

"Magic!!"      "I never knew how fun it would be to sit in a room with other people and write stories."

"Every year Fall rolls around and my ears are filled with the scratching noise of pencils on paper.

I never really write, but when TeenLab comes, creativity sky rockets."

"This is my second year in TeenLab and I have enjoyed it just as much as the first time.

It is always fun to hang out with the people, and the work is more like play!"
 

"TeenLab is a memorable experience that encourages me in every way.

Self confidence, writing skills, acting, and being who I am are things I get to portray in every session."

"I have been steered into a new writing genre, which has been fun,

hard, experimental, and occasionally irritating."

TeenLab Archives...